An LDP upset in the making?

The LDP continues to set the tone in the non-campaign campaign. Speaking in Hiroshima on the occasion of the sixty-fourth anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb, Prime Minister Aso Taro stressed the existence of "a country with nuclear weapons that could attack as our neighbor," and reiterated the importance of the US nuclear umbrella. That Aso stressed the US nuclear umbrella ought to deflate the impact of the first statement somewhat: if the US nuclear umbrella is adequate to meet the North Korean nuclear arsenal, then the prime minister is suggesting that North Korea can be dealt with in the same way that Japan has dealt with the Russian and Chinese nuclear arsenals. But, of course, Aso's purpose was to call attention to North Korea as a country THAT COULD ATTACK Japan rather than his suggestion that the North Korea could be managed via the same arrangement by which the much larger and sophisticated Russian and Chinese arsenals have been contained.

In other words, another day of the LDP's playing on the public's fears to make its case for a new mandate.

Aso was delivering the same message on a different front in Shimane and Okayama Wednesday, when he attacked the DPJ for its position on a US-Japan FTA. Exhibiting the LDP's full-out reversion to agricultural protectionism — discussed here by Aurelia George Mulgan — Aso stressed, "Agriculture is the foundation of the nation." It is difficult to know whether the LDP's attack on this front is having the desired effect, but I have to figure that the LDP has at least convinced the newly born rural floating voters to think a bit longer about whether to cast their votes for the DPJ. And after a few more weeks? The LDP may have found a winning formula: "The DPJ: it will leave Japan vulnerable to attack and destroy your livelihood." The message seems to be, national defense and some talk of economic growth (and the "once-in-a-century-economic-crisis-originating-from-America") for voters in urban and surburban areas, out-and-out protectionism in rural areas. To a certain extent the LDP is conceding seats to the LDP in urban areas — how much energy is Aso really exerting on behalf of first-termer Koizumi children? — in the hope that an all-out campaign in the countryside can deprive the DPJ of the seats in places where it needs to gain the most ground from past elections. It is trying to neutralize the DPJ's Ozawa-engineered shift to a national strategy complete with a message for rural areas.

And now in the face of the first assault by the LDP the DPJ has stumbled. As Ikeda Nobuo argues, the DPJ has diluted what was a coherent and "strategic" policy designed to destroy what he calls the LDP's "Matsuoka" legacy of particularistic support for inefficient part-time farmers. Okada Katsuya tried to answer the LDP's attack in a press conference in Mie prefecture Wednesday, in which he stated that this matter is simply the LDP's norin zoku stirring up trouble. Not good enough, Mr. Okada. Complaining about the source of the criticism does nothing to blunt the criticism in the eyes of voters. The DPJ has to meet the criticism directly and explain, over and over again, why it's wrong, how the DPJ intends to both support mostly older small farmers and promote the transformation of Japanese agriculture through trade liberalization.

[As an aside, it bears mentioning what the LDP is doing here. The LDP is basically saying that the DPJ will destroy the livelihood of farmers by opening the domestic market to the country responsible for defending them from attack. It bears mentioning that the DPJ's proposal is aimed precisely at the fundamental principle of the US-LDP alliance, that security comes first and that economics should be isolated from the alliance or not discussed at all. The LDP's friends in Washington have been all to happy to push this line, especially after the revisionist excesses of the early 1990s. But presumably there is some happy medium between paying scant attention to the economic dimension of the relationship and a virtual trade war.]

Time will tell whether the LDP's political strategy will bear fruit. But politically speaking, sowing doubt and exploiting fear is perhaps the only way the LDP can with this general election. It certainly cannot win on the basis of its policy achievements since 2005.

Who's afraid of the conservatives?

Yamasaki Taku, perhaps the leader of the LDP's remaining doves, spoke at a Genron NPO meeting Thursday afternoon at which he addressed Murata Ryohei's revelations of the secret deal between the US and Japan that permitted the US to "introduce" nuclear weapons to Japan. (Previously discussed in this post.)

"It is appropriate to approve this kind of action for US deterrent power," he said, in light of the nuclear standoff with North Korea, this kind of action being a revision of the non-nuclear principles to permit explicitly the introduction of US nuclear weapons into Japan as in the 1960 secret agreement.

Yamasaki is no pacifist, so this statement is not exactly a bombshell, but it does suggest that there is more to this debate than suggested in Armchair Asia's discussion of Murata's revelations. The anonymous author of Armchair Asia outlines Murata's conservative motives in this post, arguing, "In reality, it is part of a convoluted Rightist strategy to repeal Article 9 and create a military independent of the United States."

I do not disagree that Murata has a number of affiliations that strongly suggest his political leanings. The Shokun! article cited in the initial post — Shokun! obviously triggers various red flags — uses a number of conservative code words, "pride," "independent country," and the like. A subsequent post includes a translation of an op-ed by Okazaki Hisahiko, the notoriously hawkish Foreign Ministry OB who was once known as "Abe's brain," defending Murata's actions. (Available in Japanese here.)

But so what? Why should it matter that Murata is a conservative nationalist? And why should it matter why he decided to reveal the secret agreement (or why Okazaki has defended him)? After watching the Abe government blow up, it is hard to muster up the same concern about the influence of the conservatives. The author writes that of how Murata's remarks will be used by those "who want to use any means to repeal Article 9 and advance Japan's rearmament." Events seem to have taken care of both causes. As I have written previously, the economic crisis has greatly diminished the power of the conservatives even within the LDP, to the point that constitution revision might not even be included in the LDP's manifesto this year (if the LDP ever gets around to writing one).

Is Article 9 really at risk? Even in the best of times, it was unlikely that the conservatives would get what they wanted on Article 9. Oh sure, they could get the article revised, but the need to assemble two-thirds of the members of both houses plus fifty percent plus one of the Japanese public would guarantee that the article would be amended but not abandoned. Revision would likely shift the yardsticks, ratifying changes that have been made that appear to depart from the letter of the law, without removing all limitations on Japanese security policy. And, incidentally, I see no problems with revision of this sort. No document drafted by human hands is beyond revision. My problem is with those obsessed with revision, like Abe Shinzō, not revision itself.

In any case, with the LDP in its death throes, it bears mentioning that constitution revision is even less likely under a DPJ-led government in coalition with the SDPJ. A DPJ government is likely to take its cue from public opinion polls that show the percentage of respondents interested in constitution to be under five percent. Raising constitution revision would only serve to weaken the coalition and sow dissent within the LDP, while strengthening an opposition LDP.

The same goes for "rearmament," the second concern voiced by the author of Armchair Asia. The conservatives have been ascendant for roughly the same period that Japan has let its defense spending stagnate, which suggests, of course, that for all their rhetorical might their reach exceeds their grasp. Their reach will only decline further should the LDP lose power this year. They have allies in the DPJ, but if the DPJ is able to deliver on its plans for a government that unifies cabinet and party, conservatives like Maehara Seiji will find themselves straitjacketed by government service. And there is no chance that a DPJ government elected on a platform of Seikatsu dai-ichi would, upon taking power, proceed to channel significant sums of money into defense spending. Elected on a platform stressing butter, butter, butter and facing skyrocketing pensions costs, it is highly unlikely that the DPJ will decide to invest in guns once in office.

There may be more to rearmament than defense spending, but as with some limited form of constitution revision, what is the problem with Japan doing incrementally more without drastically increasing its spending?

To conclude a discussion that has run longer than I intended, the conservatives should be challenged but their strength and influence should not be exaggerated. And if Ambassador Okazaki wants an open debate, then someone in Japan ought to give him his debate.

Meanwhile, as I wrote in my original post on Murata, I think that whatever his motive, it is good that the Japanese government will be forced to address the role of nuclear weapons in the US-Japan relationship openly. It is entirely possible that the Japanese public — with a nuclear North Korea next door — will recognize a revision of the non-nuclear principles that explicitly permits the US to do what it has been doing all along will strengthen Japan's security. Despite the wishes of the conservatives, the public isn't exactly pressing for Japanese nuclear weapons as a substitute for US nuclear weapons.

It is encouraging that the two governments will hold a working-level meeting this month to discuss the nuclear umbrella, a discussion that is long overdue. One meeting will not resolve the paradox of Japan's trying to be the world's conscience on nuclear weapons while being defended by US nuclear weapons but it will at least help call attention to the paradox and force the Japanese public and their representatives to address it. The US should not be forced into a position where it would have to use nukes to defend Japan (at the behest of its elites) even as the Japanese public condemns the US. Explicitly permitting US nuclear weapons in Japan would certainly help make both countries responsible.

Amano's election deepens Japan's nuclear paradox

After a long stalemate to choose a successor for outgoing director-general Mohamed ElBaradei, the IAEA's board of governors elected Japanese diplomat Amano Yukiya to the position by a single vote over the requisite two-thirds majority.

The prolonged dispute was the result of a split between developed and developing countries, the latter of which preferred South African candidate Abdul Samad Minty, who would have prioritized reducing the arsenals of the extant nuclear powers over preventing nuclear proliferation. Amano, meanwhile, is seen as the candidate of the developed world.

This image of Amano precisely captures the ambiguity in Japan's nuclear posture, namely the paradox whereby Japan often speaks as a moral arbiter on nuclear affairs due to its status as the sole victim of the atomic bomb while being defended by the one of the world's nuclear powers (and the sole country to use the atomic bomb in wartime). It is particularly ironic that Amano's election immediately followed revelations by former administrative vice minister for foreign affairs Murata Ryohei about the existence of a "secret" pact between the US and Japan permitting the introduction of US nuclear weapons into Japan without prior consultation.

Murata spoke of a "single sheet of paper," passed from administrative vice minister to administrative vice minister, which permitted the US to introduce nuclear weapons to Japan without prior consultation with the Japanese government, as was supposed to happen under the terms of a 1960 agreement concluded at the same time as the US-Japan mutual security treaty. Although it was already an open secret that the US introduced nuclear weapons into Japan abroad its warships despite the official bilateral agreement and later three non-nuclear principles (promulgated after the agreement), Murata's comments mark the first such admission by an administrative vice-minister. (Murata's remarks were preceded by the remarks of other former administrative vice-ministers last month, who spoke anonymously to Kyodo. Murata is the first on the record.)

Nevertheless, as a testament to how important the Japanese government finds it to downplay Japan's nuclear paradox before the public, Chief Cabinet Secretary Kawamura Takeo denied the existence of the secret agreement. Kawamura's denial of reality prompted criticism from Kono Tarō, chairman of the lower house foreign affairs committee, who said that the government's position contradicted the evidence (and common sense) and suggested that his committee would look into investigating the matter.

Clearing the air on the precise nature of the US-Japan nuclear relationship in the past would be an important first step in debating that relationship going forward. Should Japan formalize the secret agreement and revise the three non-nuclear principles to 2.5 principles, as some have suggested? Would doing so reinforce the nuclear umbrella, or would Japanese elites still voice doubts about the soundness of the US commitment to defend Japan?

Of course, at the same time Amano's selection as IAEA director-general may rule out major changes in Japan's nuclear posture for the duration of his term. It seems to me that it would be difficult for Japan to have the nuclear weapons debate desired by conservatives with a Japanese official the face of the global non-proliferation regime. Pressures to have that debate will no dout continue as North Korea and China continue to bolster their arsenals, meaning that rather than resolving Japan's schizophrenic relationship with the atomic bomb, Amano's elevation will only intensify the gap between Japan's aspirations to serve as the world's conscience on nuclear weapons and the reality of the role of nuclear deterrence in the defense of Japan.

Koike versus the "soft liners"

On Tuesday, Koike Yuriko, former defense minister and aspirant to the LDP presidency, announced her resignation as chair of the LDP's special committee on base countermeasures.

She told the media that her resignation was intended as a protest against the decision to soften the language on preemption in the LDP Policy Research Council's defense division in the recommendations for this year's National Defense Program Guidelines (NDPG) sent to Prime Minister Asō Tarō this month. She sees the longstanding doctrine of "nonaggressive defense" as injurious to the national defense, unacceptably tying the government's hands in addressing threats to Japanese national security.

Koike has a point: if Japan is to acquire the capabilities to strike at "enemy bases," it might as well be straightforward about the circumstances in which it intends to use said capabilities. What is the deterrent value, after all, of capabilities that Japan may or may not use if faced with an imminent missile launch?

This feud may be indicative of what I thought the response to the remarks (mentioned here) by Cui Tiankai, China's ambassador to Japan, would be among LDP members. While it is unclear at what point the language was softened to rule out preemptive strikes even while calling for capabilities to strike enemy bases, Ambassador Cui's remarks surely reinforced concerns by LDP members like Yamasaki Taku that Japan must be careful about sending the wrong signals abroad — while reinforcing the resolve of hawks like Koike who unabashedly want Japan to be ready and able to carry out preemptive strikes.

Naturally there is also the question of Koike hopes to achieve by resigning her post in this fashion. She has reinserted herself into the discussion of a hot-button issue just as the Asō government has entered into what might be its endgame. She has taken a hardline position on an issue of prime importance to Asō's conservative backers, perhaps in hope of prying their support away should the prime minister be forced out before an election. Of course, I am not questioning the sincerity of her beliefs — just the timing and form of her protest.

It's a small step, but it could be an important one. If Asō does not survive long enough to lead the LDP into the general election, the conservatives might reason that backing Koike is a way to ensure that their approach to North Korea and national security generally enjoy top priority in the LDP's election campaign — while allowing Koike to take the fall should the LDP lose disastrously in the general election. (Of course, I remain skeptical that the prime minister's critics will be able to force him out before a general election.)

Meanwhile, I am curious about the political salience of the debate over preemption in the LDP. Curiously, I have yet to see a single poll that asked respondents for their opinion on the idea of preemptive strikes and the acquisition of capabilities in order to carry out attacks on North Korean bases. I suspect that there's little interest in the issue as a priority, especially if respondents were informed that acquiring new capabilities would entail greater defense spending, but I am keen to see some data on this question. If a poll has asked this question and I've missed it, do send it my way. Otherwise, the question remains: why no polling on preemption?

There is another question in the preemption debate that advocates like Koike have not addressed forthrightly. Can Japan actually preempt a possible North Korean attack? Jiji calls attention to a recent report by the International Crisis Group that suggests that North Korea has an estimated 320 Rodong intermediate range ballistic missiles on mobile launchers directed at Japan, exceeding the previous estimate of 200. Would Japan be able to find these missiles, let alone destroy them? Have Koike and other hawks made an honest assessment of what capabilities Japan will realistically need to possess in order to carry out this mission? If Japan is to have a proper debate about preemption versus deterrence, the advocates of preemption ought to be honest about what the JSDF would need to possess — and what such an arms program would cost.

For now, all I see is posturing from politicians like Koike about how Japan lacks a "true national defense."

Is Japan balancing?

"Randy Waterhouse," the nom de blog of a contributor to the political science group blog Duck of Minerva, looks to Japan in a discussion of when and why states balance against other states.

As I wrote in April, the lack of Japanese balancing behavior is the great puzzle in Japanese security policy since the end of the cold war. Waterhouse considers the possibility that North Korea — as opposed to China — is leading Japan to pursue a balancing strategy. He considers threatening signals from North Korea as a source of "perturbations" (borrowing a concept from Kingdon's Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies) that will trigger Japanese balancing behavior against North Korea.

There are a few problems with this argument. First, while the DPRK is in a sense be "revisionist" in that it wholly rejects the prevailing international order, as a small, impoverished, isolated country dependent on its neighbors to feed its people and having little more than its nuclear weapons, its missiles, and its wits to depend on for survival it hardly constitutes a revisionist power in the sense outlined by Robert Gilpin. North Korea may be revisionist in rhetoric, but do states balance against rhetoric or reach? The idea — implied but not explicitly stated by Waterhouse — is that Japanese conservatives can balance against the state that may one day become a revisionist power if it is not one already (see Alastair Iain Johnston's consideration of this question here) by using the DPRK as a stand-in for China. Policy decisions made to cope with North Korea could serve as a "down payment" on a balancing strategy against China. Or not: as Waterhouse notes, there is a difference between reactionary balancing and long-term balancing. And while Waterhouse argues that elites interested in a more robust security posture are treating North Korea's recent behavior as a catalyst, certain conservatives make no secret of their desire to balance against China. A recent Sankei editorial on the LDP subcommittee's draft NDPG points to China's rise to second place in the SIPRI index of defense spending to make the case for reversing cuts in Japan's defense spending, a call echoed in an op-ed by Sassa Atsuyuki, the first head of the Cabinet's national security office, who calls for an increase in defense spending to 1.5% of GDP (but does not mention China). Japan's desire to purchase the F-22 is explicitly connected to a desire to balance against Chinese airpower. Despite the positive developments in the Sino-Japanese relationship, the China threat thesis is alive and well among the Japanese elites arguing for a more robust security policy. North Korea's actions may help make the case for balancing, but that does not mean that elites using Chinese behavior too.

There is a bigger question in this debate, namely how do we know when a state is balancing? What mix of policies would constitute a Japanese balancing strategy? Waterhouse essentially assumes that any change to the status quo in Japanese security policy would constitute balancing. But there has been plenty of change in Japanese security policy in the past twenty years, but it is debateable whether these changes constitute balancing. Japan may have opted for some balancing: the decision made by Japanese officials in 1994-1995 to keep the US-Japan alliance at the center of Japanese security policy (and to "strengthen" the alliance) was a response to the uncertainty surrounding China's rise, although US and Japanese officials were careful to not mention China when discussing the redefinition of the alliance. In other words, it is possible to argue that Japan has opted for external balancing over internal balancing, which would entail sweeping legal changes and (presumably) an expensive rearmament program that would give Japan greater autonomy from the US to cope with an uncertain regional environment. Nearly a decade of stagnant defense spending in areas aside from missile defense and host nation support — i.e., defense spending directly connected to the alliance — means that autonomy has become increasingly costly for Japan, which may in turn explain why Japanese elites are especially sensitive to recent signals emanating from Washington.

But that being said, there are other explanations for Japan's decision to embrace the alliance that have less to do with balancing and more to do with institutionalist arguments: Japan opted to renew the alliance after the cold war because there was a certain degree of path dependency. While it appeared as if Japan was making a choice between the US-Japan alliance, greater autonomy, and greater independence within the UN and other multilateral organizations, the choice may have been a false one. Japan may have reaffirmed the alliance simply because the balance of power among domestic actors was overwhelmingly in favor of doing so, with little thought to the strategic implications of this choice versus other choices.

Is this about to change? With the defense division of the LDP's Policy Research Council approving its subcommittee's draft NDPG that recommends the acquisition of preemptive strike capabilities — most notably cruise missiles — it is possible that Japan is preparing to shift from external balancing to internal balancing. Prime Minister Aso is favorably disposed to the proposal, although his defense minister, Hamada Yasukazu, is more cautious (triggering two blog posts from Komori Yoshihisa criticizing Hamada for being too soft). But Hamada's caution suggests that there may be skeptics within the LDP who could prevent the government from making a radical break with the status quo. (And there's a strong possibility that the LDP will not be in power long enough to oversee the publication of the new NDPG in December.)

In short, Waterhouse is right to look at domestic politics as a source of Japanese balancing behavior, but he understates the extent to which Japan may have already opted for a particular balancing strategy via the US-Japan alliance, and the extent to which domestic politics constrains political actors who want Japan to embark on a substantial and expensive rearmament program.

Pushback on preemption

Prime Minister Asō Tarō and a group of national security hawks in the LDP may be pushing hard for the inclusion of preemptive capabilities in this year's National Defense Program Guidelines (NDPG), but it appears that while there is little opposition from within the LDP, the Aso government may yet have some difficulty getting its way on preemption.

The LDP's campaign for preemptive capabilities is part of a broader national security program compiled by a subcommittee of the national defense division of the party's Policy Research Council. In addition to the acquisition of preemptive defense capabilities — which the subcommittee maintains is critical to strengthening the US-Japan alliance — the draft calls for reversing cuts in defense spending, permitting collective self-defense, creating a "Japanese-style" National Security Council, relaxing the three arms-exporting principles to permit joint development, and altering Japan's policies on the defense of outlying islands.

Not surprisingly, Komeitō's leadership has aired its skepticism about both preemptive defense and a new law in the works on the inspection of North Korean vessels.

Cui Tiankai, China's ambassador to Japan, criticized the calls for preemptive defense as being unhelpful for resolving the North Korean crisis.

It is unlikely that Ambassador Cui's criticism will do much to stymie the debate on preemptive self-defense — it is possible that he might convince some risk-averse LDP members to question the wisdom of significant changes to Japan's security posture, although, at the same time, his interjection has undoubtedly stiffened the resolve of the LDP's hawks. Komeitō opposition is more significant, at least in terms of having the power to prevent the government from embracing the proposed national defense program or, should Asō embrace the program, soften it considerably. Does Komeitō need to do anything more than remind the LDP of the importance of its votes in the forthcoming election in order to receive concessions from the LDP on security policy?

The question is whether public attitudes towards North Korea have shifted markedly since 2007. In 2007, then-Prime Minister Abe Shinzō sought to implement a national security agenda similarly to the agenda now under consideration. Much like today, Abe could appeal to "evidence" of a North Korean threat in the form of North Korea's missile and nuclear tests, at that time the July 2006 missile launches and the October 2006 nuclear test. He had control of both houses and was largely indifferent to Komeitō's interests. And yet he was unable to do anything more than convene an advisory group on collective self-defense, failed to pass legislation that would create a Japanese-style NSC, failed to reverse the decline in defense spending, and did nothing about preemptive self-defense capabilities. If Abe could not succeed in implementing this program, it seems highly unlikely that Asō will succeed where Abe failed, certainly not without an extraordinary and unexpected victory in this year's election.

The question is whether North Korea's latest actions have produced a tipping point in the Japanese public's approach to North Korea. Have North Korea's second launch over Japan and second nuclear test — combined with unease about the US-Japan alliance following the Bush administration's about-face on North Korea — made the Japanese public more favorably disposed to the conservative national security agenda?

Amazingly, I have yet to see a public opinion poll that has asked respondents about preemptive self-defense capabilities and an accompanying increase in defense spending, but I suspect that elite opinion is more favorably predisposed to preemptive self-defense and the other planks of the LDP subcommittee's program than the public at large. The latest public opinion polls on the alliance — mentioned in this post — recorded growing public unease about the alliance, but it is unlikely that public unease matches that found among elites. Is the public so much more afraid of North Korea and abandonment by the US in the face of North Korean threats today than in October 2006 that it is willing to sign off on the conservative agenda? Not, I suspect, if the public sees the price tag.

Could the Asō government tie the hands of a potential DPJ government on this question? I suspect not. If the government takes steps in the waning weeks of its tenure to include subcommittee's program into the NDPG, the DPJ may be inclined to delay the NDPG in order to start from scratch, so to leave its own stamp on the program.

Of course, the DPJ may in fact be open to preemption, if not to greater military spending in the near term. Autonomous defense capabilities geared to preemptive self-defense flow logically from the DPJ's rhetoric on defense and the US-Japan alliance.

But ultimately the DPJ will be bound by the public — and the public may not be willing to commit to drastic changes in Japan's defense posture, North Korea's saber rattling and doubts about the US commitment notwithstanding. A DPJ-led government, desperate to consolidate its power and likely dependent on the SDPJ, will hardly be more able to implement far-reaching changes to Japanese security policy than Asō and the LDP, hobbled by intra-party divisions, its dependence on Komeitō, and dismal public approval figures.

It is far from inevitable that Asō and the hawks will get their way.

Separated by a common enemy

Already under consideration before North Korea's nuclear test last week, the LDP's push to include plans for an indigenous capability to strike North Korea to preempt an attack on Japan has picked up speed over the past week. On May 26th, Prime Minister Aso Taro reminded reporters that since 1955 preemptive self-defense has been considered legal. The same day a subcommittee of the defense division of the LDP's Policy Research Council approved a draft of proposals to include in this year's National Defense Program Guidelines (NDPG) that calls for preemptive strike capabilities, especially sea-launched cruise missiles. On the 28th, the prime minister once again asserted the legality of preemptive strikes, this time in proceedings in the Upper House Budget Committee.

In the midst of this debate, Mainichi called for a less passionate debate that acknowledges the risks associated with this step, including the feasibility of preemptive strikes against North Korea, the consequences for the US-Japan alliance, and the dangers of arms racing and security dilemmas in East Asia. I second Mainichi's concerns: there are a number of questions that advocates of preemptive strike capabilities have yet to answer, most notably the question of what independent Japanese strike capabilities add to US capabilities.

It now appears that the US government may be contributing to the debate over Japanese preemptive strike capabilities.

Speaking at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore on Saturday, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates delivered a message to Japanese and South Korean elites worried about the sturdiness of the US commitment to its East Asian allies:

The Republic of Korea and Japan have since become economic powerhouses with modern, well-trained and equipped armed forces. They are more willing and able to take responsibility for their own defense and assume responsibility for collective security beyond their shores. As a result, we are making adjustments in each country to maintain a posture that is more appropriate to that of a partner, as opposed to a patron. Still, though, a partner fully prepared and able to carry out all – I repeat, all – of our alliance obligations.

This message is ambiguous, welcoming greater allied contributions while reaffirming the US role in defending its allies, especially via extended nuclear deterrence, but Sankei's Komori Yoshisa believes that there is more to the story. The Obama administration, he writes in an ecstatic post at his blog (if two exclamation points are any indication), has signed off on preemptive strike capabilities. His evidence is derived from interviews of Gates and Wallace Gregson, assistant secretary of defense for Asian-Pacific affairs by Asahi's Washington correspondent Kato Yoichi in which both officials appear to accept Japan's having the ability to strike at threats outside its borders. Gates's statement is vague, premised on the notion of "If Japan decides" to acquire more offensive capabilities, i.e. practicing what he has preached about the US being a partner instead of a patron. Gregson, while also reluctant to comment on what is a domestic matter for Japan, was open to a new division of labor between the US and Japan.

I appreciate that the US officials are refraining from overt interference in Japan's internal political discussions, but I think that the US has reasons to be concerned about this shift. (I also think that Komori is fishing for US support for his position. But a pair of quotes in an Asahi article do not a new policy make.)

Apart from the aforementioned reasons for skepticism about Japan's acquiring autonomous strike capabilities, there is another reason why the US should be concerned about this debate in Japan.

Arguably one reason for the difference in US and Japanese approaches to North Korea — apart from geography, the abductees, and domestic politics — is the US alliance with South Korea. Japan's North Korea policy can be conceived solely in terms of Japanese national interests, defending Japanese lives and property from the rogue state next door. The US approach to North Korea is broader. Not only is the US concerned about the threat posed to the US by the possibility of the transfer of nuclear materials, but it is worried to a lesser extent about the durability of the global non-proliferation regime. And it is not only concerned about the threat to Japanese security, but South Korean security as well.

The conflicting demands of the US-South Korea and US-Japan alliances are a source of turbulence in the US-Japan alliance. The US, legally committed to the defense of South Korea, has to think carefully about its words and actions vis-à-vis North Korea — indeed, the US is deterred from launching a preventive and perhaps a preemptive war against North Korea due to the threat posed by North Korean conventional capabilities to Seoul. This lends an air of restraint to US pronouncements on North Korea. As Sam Roggeveen writes, it is possible to read Gates's speech in Singapore as outlining a containment policy in recognition of the considerable obstacles in the way of denuclearization. It also bears recalling the decision by the US government ruling out in advance an attempt to shoot down North Korea's test rocket. That decision has been interpreted by Japanese elites as evidence of the shakiness of the US defense commitment. Maybe so, but it may be more appropriate to view the US not as lacking commitment to Japan's defense but having concerns greater than Japan's defense.

Which is why the US (and South Korea) should be concerned about Japan's acquiring independent preemptive strike capabilities. Japan, not having any alliance relationship with South Korea, will have no reason to take South Korea's security into consideration in confronting North Korea. If the Japanese government detects an imminent launch — with the autonomous surveillance capabilities that conservatives also wanted included in the NDPG — it will be able to act solely on the basis of the direct threat posed by North Korea's missiles to the Japanese homeland. It will not have to consider whether launching a preemptive strike will lead North Korea, fearing a mortal threat to the DPRK regime or perhaps not being able to identify the source of an attack, to lash out against South Korea. Unconstrained by broader regional commitments, Japan could use its new capabilities for "offensive defense" and in the process trigger a broader regional crisis — not out of a lust for conquest, but simply out of a desire to defend itself from an external threat.

This may be an unlikely scenario: after all, it is not clear that the NDPG will include plans for preemptive capabilities, and even if strike capabilities make their way into Japan's defense plans, they may amount to nothing more than a token force. And Japan may not be able to gather the necessary intelligence for attacks against North Korea's mobile launchers.

However unlikely, South Korea ought to reach out to Japan in order to close the gap, in effect forcing Japan to think about broader regional security when it considers the threat posed by North Korea. In other words, it is necessary for South Korea (and the US) to undo the damage done when the Japanese government decided to make recovering the abductees the central goal of Japan's North Korea policy. That decision produced a Japan solipsistic in its approach to North Korea, inclined to view North Korea through its distinct lens, barely considering the perspectives from which other countries have struggled to manage North Korea.

It is encouraging that the US, Japan, and South Korea had their first ever defense ministerial meeting in Singapore Friday. If Japan is to acquire its own strike capabilities, it has to be prepared to wield them responsibly, considering the consequences that saber rattling, to say nothing of preemptive strikes could have for other countries in the region. Regional security and stability is a Japanese national interest, even without formal alliance commitments in East Asia. Realizing that, perhaps Japan's leaders will become more appreciative of US efforts to uphold regional security — especially the defense of South Korea —and less unnerved by US restraint, in turn lessening the need for independent capabilities.

A nuclear Japan is not an option

Roy Berman calls attention to conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer's call for the US to negotiate with Japan over the acquisition of nuclear weapons.



Arming with Japan satisfies Krauthammer's desire for action, which he believes as superior to the multilateral efforts he considers a "humiliation." The target of a nuclear Japan, Krauthammer admits, would not be North Korea — it would be China. He argues that a nuclear Japan would force China to move to pressure North Korea.

Of course, this could have the opposite result of leading China to redirect whatever effort it has directed to impoverished North Korea's tiny and unsophisticated arsenal to the sophisticated arsenal that a nuclear Japan would deploy.

But aside from Krauthammer's dubious assertion that China will be bludgeoned into bludgeoning North Korea by the mere existence of a nuclear Japan, Berman calls attention to the not inconsiderable domestic obstacles in Japan that make Krauthammer's proposal fanciful. How can the US "unleash" Japan if the Japanese people and a significant portion of Japan's elite do not want to be unleashed in the first place? The Japanese government has made a clear commitment to the US-Japan alliance over autonomous defense capabilities. If anything, these preferences are even more applicable when it comes to nuclear weapons.

(It bears noting that Llewelyn Hughes ably made the case for why Japan will not go nuclear in International Security in 2007.)

There is no problem that will be solved by a Japanese nuclear arsenal — only the problem of how Japan's conservatives can leave behind the postwar regime. In effect, the implication of Krauthammer's proposal is that a Japanese nuclear arsenal is desirable because it is less predictable than the US nuclear arsenal. A nuclear Japan would be a wild card in the region. The US nuclear umbrella by contrast is stabilizing. As I wrote the other day, the task for the Obama administration is to do whatever necessary to reassure Japan that the nuclear umbrella remains in place. The administration will not help its cause by overstating the impact of North Korea's latest test. As Stephen Walt writes, "...The Obama administration should avoid making a lot of sweeping statements about how it will not 'tolerate' a North Korean nuclear capability. The fact is that we've tolerated it for some time now, and since we don't have good options for dealing with it, that's precisely what we will continue to do."

A study in powerlessness

With its second nuclear test in three years, North Korea continues to illustrate the limits of the power of the US, China, and the international community as a whole.

The underground test, conducted on Monday, appears to have been more successful than the October 2006 test — although it is unclear just how much of a success it was. As Geoffrey Forden wonders, this test could have been a failed test of a 20KT device or a successful test of a miniaturized 4KT device. Pyongyang will undoubtedly be glad to keep its neighbors guessing which is the case.

The response from Japan and other countries has been predictable. Prime Minister Aso Taro spoke of the gravity of this latest development for Japanese national security and stressed cooperation with the US and the international community at the UN Security Council. The House of Representatives moved swiftly to draft a resolution condemning North Korea that could pass as early as Tuesday. The LDP leadership called the test "outrageous." Okada Katsuya, the new DPJ secretary-general, echoed the government's sentiments. Japanese conservatives used the test to advance their argument for a more robust Japanese security posture. Abe Shinzo, continuing his comeback effort, demanded firmer sanctions against North Korea, especially against North Korean counterfeiting activities, called for preemptive strike capabilities, and was vaguely supportive of a debate about acquiring nuclear weapons ("A debate on matters of national security ought to be conducted freely"). Komori Yoshihisa said that the test illustrates the limits of the multilateral management of the North Korean problem and argued that Japan, doing whatever it needs to do defend itself, should reopen the debate on a nuclear deterrent. A Sankei "news" article informs readers that North Korea has the power of life and death over Japan, based strictly on the range of the missiles it possesses. In other words, much like last month's rocket launch, the responses of Japanese political actors to North Korea's second nuclear test have followed wholly predictable patterns — and show just how powerless Japan is to stop or reverse North Korea's nuclear program.

Of note is that Japan's conservatives once again have responded as if the US-Japan alliance and its nuclear umbrella does not exist. Indeed, it is remarkable how cavalier the conservatives are in their disregard for the nuclear umbrella. This is now the standard conservative argument: play up the North Korean threat, play down the US ability to meet that threat, and let a vicious cycle of fear and doubt take over. Do the vast deterrent capabilities of the US really count for nothing in the face of North Korea's piddling (and shrinking) arsenal? North Korea may be able to deter a first strike aimed at toppling the Kim regime, but is the US somehow incapable of deterring North Korea from launching a suicidal strike against Japan? Of course, back North Korea into a corner to the point where the regime has nothing to lose and then I too may question the ability of the US or anyone else to deter North Korea from doing something like firing a Rodong in Japan's direction.

Which is why the response of the conservatives is the height of folly. Threatening the very survival of the regime is a good way to make North Korea undeterrable. It's an unpleasant task, but North Korea's neighbors are responsible for talking (or buying) North Korea down from the ledge. To wit, criticism of the "talk over pressure" approach is equally foolish. If the goal of negotiations is to halt and reverse North Korea's nuclear program, then yes, it is an abject failure. But if the purpose of multilateral diplomacy is to keep talking North Korea down from the ledge and to buy time for its neighbors to plan for regime collapse and to push for gradual opening of the north (however halting), then "jaw-jaw" is essential and must continue, despite the nuclear test. I for one think there is no alternative to the latter.

Hence the distinction between capabilities and power. The US is unquestionably capable of deterring a nuclear strike against Japan, but it takes compellent power over North Korea's actions. Being unable to make a credible threat of regime change and visibly dependent on Beijing to pressure Pyongyang, Washington has little power other than its deterrent power. Japan, even with a nuclear arsenal of its own, would have even less power over North Korea. This is the unanswered question in the conservative response to every act of provocation by North Korea. If the US is unable to guarantee Japanese security through its immense nuclear arsenal — again, the unstated (or occasionally stated) basis of the argument for a Japanese arsenal — how would a Japanese deterrent be any more powerful? I understand that they could argue that the problem isn't US capabilities but US commitment, but I have yet to see a convincing demonstration that the US commitment to defend Japan from attack is flagging to the point that Japan would require its own nuclear weapons. I do not think the Japanese public is convinced either.

So given that North Korea has successfully deterred the US and others from initiating regime change, what choice do the participants in the six-party talks but to turn to the UN to condemn the test and then try once again to engage North Korea via the talks? Meanwhile, the governments of the region should continue to treat every day that Kim Jong-il lives as another day for them to plan for regime collapse.

And as for the ongoing effort by Japanese conservatives to undermine the nuclear umbrella? Mr. Roos, you have your work cut out for you.

Conservative-in-chief

Fresh from his trip to Washington, D.C., Abe Shinzo has thrust himself into the debate over how Japan should respond to North Korea's rocket launch this month.

On Tuesday he delivered an address to the new study group led by Yamamoto Ichita (discussed in this post) that calls for an "investigation" into the development of conventional deterrent capabilities that would enable Japan to strike at bases in North Korea. Abe endorsed the group's aims and stressed the importance of permitting collective self-defense for the sake of strengthening the alliance. Of particular interest is that Abe argued that acquiring the technological capabilities to strike North Korea and the legal framework that would enable Japan to use its new capabilities would strengthen the alliance. I suppose it is possible to argue that any improvement in Japan's capabilities would strengthen the US-Japan alliance, but I find that argument fallacious. It is easy enough to imagine how Japan's having the ability to strike North Korea directly would undermine the alliance by posing the risk that Japan might entrap the US in a shooting war not desired by Washington. After all, look at the differences between the official US and Japanese responses to this month's launch.

It seems unlikely that Japan would actually use conventional strike capabilities to attack North Korea, but then again, if Japan actually acquired said capabilities, it seems conceivable that the government might feel pressured to use them if presented with evidence of an imminent North Korean attack (which raises questions about the Japanese government's ability to discern an imminent strike, and whether it would shoot first and ask questions later).

There are other questions worth asking. Would an independent Japanese conventional deterrent make much of a difference in the alliance's ability to deter North Korea? What capabilities does the US lack when it comes to deterring North Korea from striking in any direction? More importantly, how will Japan be any less deterred from launching an attack on North Korea than the US, especially without nuclear weapons in its arsenal? (Over to you, Nakagawa Shoichi!) At the same time, by calling for independent strike capabilities, Abe and other conservatives may be raising doubts — intentionally or unintentionally — about the US security guarantee where fewer existed before, which could in turn...lead to more support for precisely the policy called for by the conservatives.

As far as I am concerned, the biggest difference between Ozawa Ichiro and his conservative critics on defense policy is that at least Ozawa is frank about his desire for a more independent Japan capable of saying no to the US.

This speech by Abe is another sign that far from having softened his image following his fall from power, Abe appears to have learned nothing and is no less obsessed with remaking Japan according to his vision, a vision that in security policy entails barely veiled disgust with postwar Japan as it exists and a view of international politics that belongs more in the nineteenth than the twenty-first century.

Perhaps Abe believes that he will get another shot at the premiership without adjusting at all after his disastrous first at-bat. But in practical terms Abe's recent activities may be more about Abe's reclaiming his position as the LDP's leading conservative ideologue than about his scheming for another run for the LDP presidency, which for the foreseeable future is unlikely to be an option open to him. If Aso Taro manages to lead the LDP to victory, his position will be cemented, forcing Abe to wait, perhaps indefinitely for another chance; if Aso and the LDP lose, it is unlikely that the LDP would turn to a man who would bear much (indirect) responsibility for that defeat to lead the party in opposition.

Abe may be better off as conservative-in-chief. Even as prime minister Abe preferred pontificating about the future and musing about how Japan ought to be than coping with Japan as it is, warts and all. As chief ideologue, Abe can give speeches to LDP study groups and Washington think tanks to his heart's delight, leaving the hard choices and compromises of governing to someone else. He will face little competition for the job. Aso, for all his shortcomings, is far superior to Abe as a politician; whatever his ideological predilictions, he has not forgotten that his job as prime minister is to govern on behalf of all Japanese and his job as LDP president is to help his party win the next election. Aso certainly has his predilictions — his fervent belief in Japan's latent power — but unlike Abe he has tried to square his beliefs with public insecurities, instead of ignoring the insecurities to focus on the ideology. And besides, Aso is a bit too much of a maverick even among conservatives to fit comfortably as the conservative-in-chief.

Abe, without question a true believer, is a better fit for the job. Lucky for him he has plenty of time on his hands.

The LDP's loose lips

When Ozawa Ichiro suggested that at some unspecified point in the future the US forward-deployed forces in Japan might be reduced to the Seventh Fleet with Japan's taking greater responsibility for its own defense, he was greeted with opprobrium from LDP and government officials, who called him naive, unrealistic, and ignorant. Even Kevin Maher, the US consul general in Okinawa, weighed in, echoing LDP comments about Ozawa's ignorance of the complexities of the East Asia regional security environment. Judging by the response, it appeared as if Ozawa was a dangerous radical who, if elected, would single-handedly undermine the alliance and leave Japan defenseless in a dangerous neighborhood.

After watching the response from certain corners of the Japanese establishment to North Korea's rocket launch, when will Mr. Maher issue another warning to Japanese politicians for their dangerous rhetoric?

Over the past week, Japanese conservatives have used the fear roused by the North Korean launch to put one radical idea after another before the public, all of which amount to a giant vote of no-confidence in the US-Japan alliance. The same politicians who last month were condemning Ozawa for his naivete were rattling the saber at North Korea and in the process questioning whether the US is capable of defending Japan from its neighbors.

Some examples:

• Yamamoto Ichita and six other LDP members formed a study group for "thinking about strengthening deterrent capabilities against North Korea." The group wants the new National Defense Program Outline due at year's end to include some mention of possessing the capability to strike at bases in North Korea. The group also calls for lifting the restriction on collective self-defense, but the focus appears to be more on acquiring new capabilities than on bolstering the alliance. The other six members are Shimomura Hakubun (54), a four-term lower house member from Tokyo; Onodera Itsunori (48), a three-term member from Miyagi; Mizuno Kenichi (42), a four-term member from Chiba; Tsukada Ichiro (45), a first-term upper house member from Niigata; Suzuki Keisuke (32), a first-term PR member from Fukuoka; and Matsumoto Yohei (35), a first-term lower house member from Tokyo. There are certain points of commonality among these seven. Their study group memberships lie at the nexus of the Koizumian reformists and the Abe-Aso-Nakagawa (Shoichi) conservatives. Three belong to the "True Conservative Policy Research Group." The first-termers belong to the club of 83 or the conservative Tradition and Creation club. They occupy the younger half of the age spectrum, meaning they can look forward to inheriting the LDP. In Shimomura the group has a politician identified by Richard Samuels and Patrick Boyd as a future leader of the LDP. It may be a small group, but it is a significant group in terms of its membership, representative less of the views of the LDP at large than of the views of a group that is likely to lead the LDP in years to come. Their membership in this group is wholly consistent with what Samuels and Boyd found in their study of next-generation political leaders: "The twelve [future LDP leaders they identify]...are significantly more supportive of Japan’s right to preemptive attack in the face of imminent threat than the LDP overall or the larger midcareer generational cohort."
  

• I have already noted that prominent conservatives used the occasion of the launch to call for a debate on the acquisition of nuclear weapons. Hosoda Hiroyuki dismissed these remarks by saying that "I don't think that anyone is seriously saying this," while Kawamura Takeo, the chief cabinet secretary, reaffirmed the three non-nuclear principles. (These remarks were in response to LDP official Sakamoto Goji's remarks about acquiring nuclear weapons and withdrawing from the UN.)
  

• Koike Yuriko, whose quest to unseat Aso Taro ended just as soon as it began, stressed the need for a Japanese-style National Security Council — an idea that died with the Abe government — at a meeting of a subcommittee of the LDP Policy Research Council's defense policy division.

• Nakagawa Hidenao stated his concern that since the US ruled out intercepting the North Korean launch beforehand, it exposed a gap in the alliance.

Komori Yoshihisa, Sankei's man in Washington, more or less summed up the line of argument that encapsulates the views of these politicians in a front-page article in Sankei — more op-ed than reportage — in which he speaks of the present moment as a "moment of truth" for the alliance.

Komori argues that the US (and the effete and ineffectual Obama administration) failed to live up to the letter of the alliance by ruling out an intercept, that the Obama administration's emphasis on multilateral diplomacy did nothing to prevent the launch, and that Japan is learning the true face of the new administration when it comes to the alliance. The upshot is that Japan is coming to realize that in the face of the North Korean missile threat, it cannot necessarily depend on the United States.

This reasoning is considerably more threatening to the alliance than anything Ozawa said. In material terms the US security guarantee is no weaker today than it was before North Korea's rocket launch. Does a slightly less unsuccessful rocket launch make Japan so much more vulnerable to North Korea's missiles that the alliance as it exists is rendered irrelevant? Has enough changed in the past week to merit this discussion?

And yet by talking as if North Korea has struck a blow against the alliance, these leaders risk eroding public confidence in the alliance without offering anything in its place. After all, Defense Minister Hamada Yasukazu said "it is highly doubtful" that deterrent capabilities will be included in this year's NDPO or the mid-term defense program. Japan is still not prepared to even discuss nuclear weapons. (Yamasaki Taku offered the novel argument against a nuclear debate by saying that even by talking about nuclear weapons Japan would be voicing its acceptance of North Korea's nuclear weapons.) But the LDP is taking a hard line — Hosoda took the opportunity to criticize Condoleeza Rice and Christopher Hill by name for being "weak" on North Korea — without any indication that its rhetoric will accomplish anything but frightening the public and undermining the alliance. (Of course, if Japan actually acquired its own conventional deterrent capability, it would likely lead to conclusions similar to Ozawa's: if Japan had its own capabilities to strike at North Korea, presumably Japanese citizens would wonder why they were continuing to pay to base US airpower on Japanese soil.)

As Sam Roggeveen wrote in response to equally outrageous rhetoric from Newt Gingrich in the US, "There is no military solution to this dilemma — not missile defence, and certainly not air strikes or special forces. The reason lies in the geography of the Korean peninsula. The proximity of Seoul (and several other South Korean cities) to the border with the North means Pyongyang essentially holds that city hostage." Japan is in no more position to start a war with North Korea than the US is. Japan may be more insecure on account of geography, but geography makes Japan no more capable of "solving" the North Korean problem than any other country.

The US is, of course, paying the price for having swung from unremitting hostility towards North Korea to cooperation in the hope of containing the threat without ensuring that Japan shifted too. The US government, first under Bush and now under Obama, has only acknowledged the reality that the US has little power to change the unpleasant status quo and must therefore find a way to limit the threat posed by North Korea beyond mere deterrence. The Japanese government, by contrast, is locked in by past decisions to pursue a hard line on North Korea that put the abductees first and roused the public's fears so that the government lacks the ability to change course, even if it wanted to do so. And Japan's conservatives are using the situation to push an agenda that they would be advocating anyway — Kim Jong-il has simply made it easier for them to do so.

Conservative rhetoric is unlikely to change Japan's security policy in the near term, not with a 15 trillion yen stimulus package on the agenda. For the moment the public continues to prefer tough talk on North Korea to backing up talk with expensive weaponry. But too much tough talk will undermine the US-Japan relationship and make the US more eager to work with countries that will help it contain or solve the North Korea problem, not make it worse.

Perhaps it is time to send an ambassador to Tokyo.

The Aso government's need for speed

Ozawa Ichiro, marking the third anniversary of his leadership of the DPJ, gave a long (and rambling) press conference at DPJ headquarters to mark the occasion.

In the midst of Ozawa's winding and evasive answers to questions pertaining to North Korea's rocket launch, political strategy, the coming general election, and economic policy, it is hard to find a coherent message, which betrays a certain lack of confidence that Ozawa and the DPJ are feeling at this juncture.

For the first time in months, the DPJ is on the defensive. The momentum has shifted perceptibly. The DPJ, rather than criticizing the government from one misstep or another, is forced to defend Ozawa's alleged misdeeds and respond to an Aso government that has appeared more vigorous of late.

Despite North Korea's pushing Nishimatsu out of the headlines for the moment and Ozawa's having secured the support of the bulk of the DPJ — the latest vote of confidence coming from Okada Katsuya, his most likely successor — for his staying on as leader, the impact of the Okubo indictment remains that the DPJ is now answering the questions instead of asking them. As the LDP knows all too well, politically it is much easier to criticize or threaten censure than to have to explain why apparent wrongdoing is not in fact wrongdoing. The DPJ has enjoyed a run of good luck, with the LDP's making plenty of mistakes for the DPJ to exploit, but now finds itself on the receiving end of the public's doubt.

Perhaps the more important reason for the swing of the pendulum away from the DPJ is the appearance of action on the part of the Aso government. Between North Korea and the financial crisis, the Aso government appears to be getting things done. I think Ozawa is right to question the government's handling of last weekend's launch, but this argument may have little political utility. The public is more concerned about North Korea than the mistakes the government may or may not have made while acting to keep Japan safe. Not surprisingly, the media wanted to know what an Ozawa government would do in the Aso government's situation. The media asked about whether the DPJ would be able to work together with the SDPJ on security policy in a coalition government, given that the party abstained from the Diet vote condemning North Korea's launch — and Ozawa prevaricated. The one clear answer he gave rejected calls within the LDP for the capability to launch preemptive strikes against North Korea. He also called for greater cooperation with China and Russia on North Korea, which is fine seeing as how the US has already beaten a well-worn path to Beijing to cooperate on North Korea, but hardly certain of yielding results. The DPJ will not win by meeting the appearance of action on the part of the LDP with mealy-mouthed obfuscation.

The same applies to the DPJ's response to the Aso government's latest stimulus plan, which will amount to roughly 15 trillion yen and push the total budget for 2009 over 100 trillion yen for the first time in history. The plan includes environmental technology projects, tax relief, infrastructure projects (lengthening the runway at Haneda, for example), allowances for children not yet in school, and greater protection for temporary workers. As Mainichi suggests, this stimulus package is redolent of baramaki, of throwing money about willy nilly.

I think it is fair to ask whether the government's latest plan will make a dent in shifting the public's propensity to consume, which remains the primary challenge for economic recovery. Claus Vistesen, in a long discussion of how the government can get people to consume more, once again comes back to demographics — he questions the argument that the government can fix the lack of domestic demand by incentivizing the transfer of wealth from the older to the younger generation and suggests that the answer is "to rely on the ability to keep a structural surplus towards the rest of the world" (which means constantly finding countries able to maintain deficits to complement Japan's surpluses, something the US may not be able to keep doing).

But without a plan of its own, the DPJ is also on the defensive on economic policy. The DPJ's "next cabinet" compiled an economic stimulus proposal this week, but for the most part it looks like the DPJ is simply trying to outbid the LDP rather than determine measures the DPJ can take to promote recovery and transformation. Promising 21 trillion yen over two years, the DPJ is offering 26,000 yen monthly child allowances (a proposal straight out of the party manifesto), making highways free, strengthening support for workers, and investing in green technology. The party is also calling for tax cuts for small- and medium-sized businesses and removing the temporary gasoline tax. Ozawa insisted that the party's manifesto remains pertinent despite economic conditions, that its focus on livelihood issues remains sound, but it is hard to escape the impression that the DPJ is punting on the most significant livelihood issue of all: the economic crisis. The party is still focused on comprehensive adminstrative reform as a means for freeing up funds. Adminstrative reform may save some money, but it certainly won't be a reliable source of funds in the short or medium run. Saving the Japanese economy will require more than cutting waste.

As a result, the party has, for the moment, ceded the initiative to the Aso government. Prime Minister Aso is even feeling confident enough to speculate openly about the timing of the general election, as he did Monday evening of this week: "Soon," he said. He may not have been serious — Sankei suggested his remark may have been intended to disorient the DPJ — but subsequent remarks suggest that the prime minister may be thinking hard about exploiting the DPJ's situation by calling a general election should the DPJ oppose the government's stimulus plans. The government is clearly desperate to appear to be doing something in response to the crisis. The content of policy appears to matter less than the recognition that the government is acting. Chief Cabinet Secretary Kawamura explicitly appealed to the speed with which the US passed a stimulus package earlier this year in a call for cooperation with the oppostion parties (ignoring the reality of the Republican Party's fierce opposition to the stimulus). The Aso government clearly wants to consolidate recent gains and build on its momentum. Whether it will succeed will depend in part on events, in part on the response of the DPJ.

The DPJ needs to tailor its message to acknowledge that it is no longer 2007. There is no ignoring the economic crisis. This week's next cabinet discussions were a start, but there is more work to do. The DPJ should have little trouble doing this: isn't fixing the economy a lifestyle issue? The DPJ cannot answer the Aso government's frenetic activity by waving its 2007 election manifesto.

The DPJ also needs to find the right message on North Korea. It ought to point to irresponsible comments on nuclear weapons by the prime minister, his former finance minister, and, most recently, Sakamoto Goji, a six-term LDP member and director general of the party organization. Asahi reported that Sakamoto stated his support for the possession of nuclear weapons and withdrawal from the UN at a meeting on Tuesday, but denied the validity of the report. If the DPJ can confirm that Sakamoto said this (confirm being the operative word), it ought to be able to appeal to public disapproval of this argument and paint the Aso government as excessively bellicose. The public certainly wants a hard line on North Korea, but there appear to be limits to just how hard a line the public will support. In general, the DPJ might be better off supporting the government on this issue, applauding the decision to go to the UN and work closely with the US and other countries. The DPJ gains little from criticizing a decision that has broad public support, and supporting the government on this issue could neutralize it in an election campaign and make the DPJ appear as something other than rejectionist.

The point is that the DPJ has not lost the next election yet. Momentum may have momentarily shifted in the LDP's favor, but the DPJ and Ozawa are still in a position to pressure the government. But it cannot merely play for time and hope that the Aso government will make mistakes.

After the launch

In the wake of North Korea's Unha-2 launch Sunday, the Japanese establishment and public have uniformly reacted with a sense of outrage and a desire for an vigorous Japanese and international response to the test.

With substantial public support — 78% of respondents in a Yomiuri poll — the government is investigating tightening sanctions and plans to secure a cabinet decision authorizing further sanctions on 10 April. The Aso government is also working with the US and South Korean governments to secure a new UN Security Council resolution condemning North Korea's actions over Chinese and Russian doubts. Sankei reports that in its work to assemble a coalition in support of the resolution, the foreign ministry is not looking for new sanctions to be included in the UN resolution, as a means of making the resolution more attractive to China and Russia.

Other Japanese are thinking beyond sanctions and resolutions. Nakagawa Shoichi, the disgraced former finance minister and leading conservative in the LDP, responded to the launch on Sunday by once again calling for a debate on acquiring nuclear weapons. (He most recently did so after the October 2006 nuclear test, when he was head of the LDP's policy research council — at which time Aso Taro, then foreign minister, joined him in calling for a debate on acquiring a nuclear arsenal.) To my knowledge, Jiji is the only news outlet that reported on Nakagawa's comments. The Tokyo Shimbun reports that he spoke only of a debate about how Japan can defend itself, and suggesting that it should consider acquiring the ability to strike at "enemy bases." I'm inclined to believe that Jiji's report is correct: why would Nakagawa be any more discreet now than he was when he had an official position? No longer a leader of the LDP's conservatives, his words carry less weight, but he still provides insight into how Japan's conservatives think about the region. After all, Nakagawa's remarks echo what Tamogami Toshio, former ASDF chief of staff and the new darling of the right, has said about nuclear weapons. In an interview with Sankei last November, Tamogami spoke of the deterrent effect of even publicly considering the acquisition of nuclear weapons — and suggested that ruling out the acquisition of nuclear weapons from the start weakens deterrence. More recently, in a conversation with defense affairs commentator Ushio Masato (a former ASDF airman, trustee of Sakurai Yoshiko's think tank the Japan Institute for National Fundamentals, and regular in the pages of Sapio, Seiron, and Shokun!) published as the book「自衛隊はどこまで強いのか」(To what extent is the JSDF strong?), Tamogami calls for the acquisition of ballistic missiles as the best way to negotiate with North Korea and says that "the most effective way for Japan to become an independent country is to be nuclear-armed."

The conservative argument has little to do with North Korea's test, which was once again a failure, albeit less of a failure than July 2006, when its Taepodong-2 dropped into the Sea of Japan within a minute of launch. This time it managed to drop the first stage before the second and third fell into the Pacific. (Geoffrey Forden considers North Korea's progress in missile development here.) Despite no tangible change in US deterrent capabilities or the US commitment to Japan's defense — by all accounts US-Japan cooperation went smoothly in anticipation of the launch — the conservatives are agitating about Japan's vulnerabilties. For example, Sankei, in a news article that reads more like an article in a conservative opinion magazine, writes of the "possibility that data collected by the US military will not be adequately transferred" to Japan. As Tamogami's remarks above suggest, the acquisition of nuclear weapons is not about — or not only about — their deterrent value. Nor it is about the nature of the North Korean threat, which has gotten no worse as a result of the latest launch. (And, MTC suggests, the missile threat may be less worrisome than the ability of North Korean agents to cause havoc on Japanese soil.)

It is be about Japan's being able to defend itself without having to worry about the reliability of the US-Japan alliance. Conservatives like Nakagawa and Tamogami would be calling for more robust military capabilities even if the rocket launch had failed immediately after liftoff as in 2006. (We should be thankful that Tamogami is so open with his thoughts.)

All that has changed is that for the moment the eyes of the news media and the Japanese people are on North Korea.

Nevertheless, the conservative position has little public support. A new Shin-Hodo 2001 poll found 19.4% of respondents in favor of Japan's going nuclear and 72.8% opposed. (By comparison, a Hodo 2001 poll released on 15 October 2006, after the nuclear test, found 82.6% opposed to Japan's going nuclear and only 13.8% in favor: A slight shift, but for now probably not a significant shift.)

But will the legal and economic measures favored by the government and the public make any difference? What can Japan and the other participants in the six-party talks realistically do in response to North Korea's launch, other than protest?

As Mainichi reports, further sanctions will have little effect due to earlier sanctions on trade between Japan and North Korea. Economic sanctions on North Korea strikes me as the economic equivalent of "making the rubble bounce." The same holds true, even more so, for further US sanctions or even a reversion to a hardline on North Korea. Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the UN, has insisted that if the UN does nothing in response to a clear violation of UNSC Resolution 1718 it will weaken the six-party talks, which may or may not be true but shows that the Obama administration will likely press on with talks, although Yomiuri claims to see evidence of a US shift to a harder line.

Joshua Stanton suggests that there are a number of tools at the Obama administration's disposal, including a number of financial measures that could choke off the regime's access to hard currency from abroad. Maybe so, but at what cost? As Fred Kaplan argues at Slate, the US has no good options for dealing with the DPRK. The six-party talks will not result in denuclearization, not any time soon at least. Ignoring North Korea raises the prospect that North Korea will up the ante in its bid for attention. Boxing in the regime, as recommended by Stanton, presumably raises the risk of the regime lashing out in desperation — or, worse yet, that the regime will collapse for the US and its neighbors are prepared to deal with the consequences of regime collapse (a contingency that the US and North Korea's neighbors, China especially, should be devoting considerable energy to preparing for). There is no good option available to the US, Japan, and South Korea in the absence of more Chinese pressure, which may not be as viable an option as Kaplan suggests it is.

The only course of action may be getting a token resolution out of the Security Council and delaying a bit before resuming the six-party talks, and preparing for the possibility of regime collapse, in the meantime doing whatever possible to coax North Korea open in the hope of making collapse marginally less dangerous for North Korea's neighbors and less jarring for the downtrodden people of the DPRK.

And as for Japan, it ought to be less worried about its deterrent capabilities than about fixing the defense ministry, which over the weekend once again revealed its problems with handling information.

Rocket launched; Japan breathes again

The Aso government got its wish: North Korea launched its rocket, with the first stage said to have landed off the coast of Akita prefecture and the second said to have landed in the Pacific Ocean.

After weeks of posturing, there was no attempt to intercept the debris.

It is unclear whether North Korea successfully delivered a satellite into orbit, as it said it would.

The US, Japan, and South Korea will now go to the UN Security Council as planned, citing the launch as a violation of UNSC resolution 1718. There will be some question of whether China will join the others in condemning the launch. China and Russia expressed reluctance to declare North Korea in violation of res. 1718 because it had followed procedures — notifying the International Maritime Organization and the International Civil Aviation Organization of its impending launch — and gave indictations that it was "just" a satellite launch, even though the implications of a successful launch have obvious implications for North Korea's missile arsenal. (As an aside, I suspect that Japanese conservatives are happy with a successful launch, thinking that it will render the US as vulnerable to North Korea missile strikes as Japan, narrowing the distance between the US and Japan on North Korea.)

China always walks a fine line in its relationship with North Korea, and this case will be no different. China will likely stop short of supporting a new resolution condemning North Korea or supporting new sanctions — both Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao were cool to the urgings of Prime Minister Aso and Foreign Minister Nakasone on the sidelines of the G20 in London — but I wouldn't be surprised if Beijing used one of its own back channels with Pyongyang to express its displeasure.

Drowning in noise

While Japan waited anxiously Saturday to see whether North Korea would launch its rocket, the day ended up being notable for the defense ministry's mistakenly informing the public not once but twice that launch had occurred.

Yomiuri has the details on how the public came to be misinformed. The first mistake, which occurred around 10am Saturday, resulted from a computer glitch at the GSDF command center in Tokyo, which resulted in some 900 JSDF personnel receiving emails announcing that a launch had been detected, including one GSDF officer in Akita, who proceeded to inform local authorities of the launch. The second mistake, at around noon, was the result of a misunderstanding by the Air Self-Defense Forces officer responsible for missile defense, who thought that a report received from air defense command in Tokyo was based on information from US early warning satellites, when in fact it came from a J/FPS-5 radar station in Chiba that had detected "some kind of wake." The ASDF officer informed the Kantei's crisis management center, which then informed the media and some local governments via its M-net system.

Geoffrey Forden has more about the Chiba station and another station in Shimonoseki. As for the Chiba station, Yomiuri reports that its location poses some difficulty due to the Japan Alps lying between Chiba and North Korea. Due to geography, the radar is detecting with a 4-6 degree angle of elevation, which apparently prevented the station from tracking North Korea's 2006 missile launches, which were about 100 kilometers too low. But as Yomiuri notes, the mistake had less to do with the radar than with human error: neither the ASDF officer who received the report nor the defense ministry's central command post confirmed that the information had come from US spy satellites. They ought to have been suspicious, because reportedly an alarm would sound when data was received from the US — and beyond that, they could have checked on a US-Japan computer system for sharing information.

The result was confusion and alarm in localities throughout Japan. Apparently the public is paying more attention to the government's extensive and visible preparations than to its messages telling the public to remain calm and minimizing the danger of falling debris. To some degree, the confusion was the result of over-preparedness. In their desire to deliver information to the public has swiftly as possible, local governments have neglected safeguards that would check for accuracy before issuing announcements. The speed with which corrections were issued caused further confusion.

The government was quick to apologize for the mistakes, and continued to stress its readiness — and urged the Japanese people to carry on with their daily lives. But yesterday's follies will likely dog the government for weeks and months to come.

On Saturday afternoon, Hatoyama Yukio, DPJ secretary-general, criticized the government for needlessly alarming the public, sentiments echoed by the JCP, SDPJ, and PNP. The government also faced criticism from within the governing coalition. I have already mentioned Komeito's rapid-fire criticism, which was echoed by LDP members. As an unnamed LDP defense zoku with cabinet experience said: "As this has made Japan's troubles with its crisis management capabilities public, it's extremely unpleasant."

Yomiuri's anonymous zoku giin alludes to an important point, namely that both the Japanese government and the Japanese people are not prepared for this sort of thing, despite their experience with disaster preparedness. How often have the JSDF personnel responsible for handling and conveying information received from Japanese radar sites and US satellites drilled for a missile launch? And this is a situation in which North Korea has provided a launch window. Would the JSDF be ready in the event of a contingency on the Korean Peninsula which resulted in missiles being launched at Japan unannounced? It is fortunate that the errors were on the side of overcaution, but, of course, there's always the danger that these mistakes will result in the "boy who cried wolf" syndrome.

In that sense, Japan should be thankful that North Korea is stress testing Japan's national emergency response system. Of course, the Aso government won't see it that way, as I suspect that in the aftermath of Saturday's fiasco the DPJ will use its control of the upper house to launch an inquiry into what precisely went wrong and perhaps the Aso government's handling of the launch more generally. The last thing the government had hoped for when going all out in its preparations for the launch would be comments from the public wondering how these mistakes happened "despite Japan's high technology." But I hope — and the Japanese people should hope — that a public inquiry into Saturday's events reveals precisely what went wrong in the JSDF and the defense ministry, and offers recommendations for improving Japan's ability to respond to national security emergencies. Hopefully Saturday's mistakes also reinvigorate the process of defense ministry reform, as the ministry has shown once again that its information handling skills are gravely deficient.

Undoubtedly the Aso government must be hoping that North Korea launches its rocket on Sunday, that information about the launch is received, processed, and disseminated seamlessly, and that no debris falls in Japan's direction. Saturday's mishaps may have been enough to halt the rally the Aso government has enjoyed lately; further mishaps could send Aso's approval ratings back into the single digits.

And in the midst of all the focus on North Korea, Ozawa Ichiro must be breathing a sigh of relief now that the media's gaze has shifted elsewhere. Suddenly there are more important concerns than whether Ozawa and his secretary knew that they were receiving dirty money from a construction company.

Jumping the gun

The weather is apparently clear in North Korea, and the Korean Central News Agency has announced that the DPRK will soon send its satellite into orbit.

Japan is on hair trigger alert. The defense ministry has indicated that it will announce its response to the rocket launch within minutes, using information from US early-warning satellites and the US and Japanese warships deployed around Japan. The Kantei's subterranean command center is active, ready to gather information that will then by conveyed simultaneously to Japan's localities and the news media, although Sankei, in one of its many reports on the impending launch, noted that Prime Minister Aso is not letting it interfere with his usual schedule. Not to be left out, even the DPJ has created a rapid-response office to articulate the party's position should North Korea carry out the launch.

The result of all this readiness? False alarms, naturally.

In Akita at 10:50am Saturday, a GSDF liaison officer in the Tohoku region informed firefighters and representatives of cities, town, and villages that the "missile had been launched at 10:48am," prompting the representatives to send word back to their municipalities. A couple hours the central government made a similar error, informing news organizations that the launch had occurred, only to rescind the message five minutes later.

I am curious to see the political impact of this spectacle. (As long as no one gets hurt, it is a spectacle.)

(Photo by the Sankei Shimbun)

North Korea has gotten the attention it craves, and the Aso government has been given an opportunity to show that Japan won't be surprised by North Korea a second time, that investments in missile defense haven't been in vain, and that the LDP-led government is committed to keeping the Japanese people safe from the villain from Central Casting next door.

All very theatrical.

Whether it remains theatrical will depend on whether debris plummets in Japan's direction and whether Japan feels compelled to fire at it, at which point everything becomes deadly serious.

UPDATE: Tottori prefecture also received mistaken reports of a launch from the central government at around noon.

Komeito has already said that the false alarms are "shameful."

If North Korea launches a satellite without Japan's having to fire at falling rocket components, the biggest story to come out of the launch may be the faulty warning system that the government had been so proud of during the buildup to the launch. The DPJ will surely have a field day with it.